


blood is thicker than water (and we've fought side by side for eternity, sister)

by MidnightBlueMoon



Series: December 2018 [12]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clary Fray & Alec Lightwood Friendship, Gen, Parabatai Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 00:12:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16964115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightBlueMoon/pseuds/MidnightBlueMoon
Summary: When the house started burning, Jocelyn ran and took her daughter with her – and she ran towards the only place she knew she would be safe. The people who took her in knew the price she paid, they knew of the guilt that haunted Jocelyn night and day. The Lightwoods had a son already, only two years older than Clary, and Maryse was expecting her second child. They took the Fairchilds in, gave them a home without asking for something backAka, Clary grew up with the Lightwoods and she and Alec became parabatai.





	blood is thicker than water (and we've fought side by side for eternity, sister)

**Author's Note:**

> Day 12. The first one actually posted on the right day! Yay!
> 
> This is **not** a ship fic. This is a parabatai fic, and I better not see any Clalec shippers here. This is not for you.

Clarissa Adele Fairchild was born in a dark night with no stars looking down on her. Maybe it was a bad sign – but to her mother, it was the sign that Clarissa would be the light in her darkness.

Jocelyn feared her son, but she would never be afraid of this small, beautiful girl in her arms. She vowed to protect her with everything she had – and when she told Lucian, all it took for him was to look at this fragile baby with the huge green eyes.

And when the house started burning, Jocelyn ran and took her daughter with her – and she ran towards the only place she knew she would be safe. The people who took her in knew the price she paid, they knew of the guilt that haunted Jocelyn night and day. The Lightwoods had a son already, only two years older than Clary, and Maryse was expecting her second child. They took the Fairchilds in, gave them a home without asking for something back. “You have suffered for long enough”, Maryse told Jocelyn in a lonely night when they were talking over a glass of wine. The way she said it made Jocelyn realize how much was on the line for them as well – they had given their lives to the Clave and one mistake would kill them.

So she did the only thing she knew to make things right – she gave the Clave everything she knew about Valentine, about his experiments and his visions, about her own son with dark, impure blood. The Clave didn’t treat her gently – like Starkweather she wasn’t allowed to leave the Institute without asking permission first, but it was a small price to pay. She abandoned the name of her husband and taught Clary to be better than her. When she was old enough, she took her aside and told her what her father had done – Clary wouldn’t talk for days after, but Jocelyn knew that her daughter needed to know. When Clary left her room for the first time after that, there was something different about her. There was an anger burning inside her, not towards her mother or the Clave, but towards Valentine – for she would never use the word _father_ again.

 

Growing up with the Lightwood children made Clary strong, a fighter inside and out. When they were little, Alec used to carry the girls around on his back, playing with them every day. Later they would spare for fun and he would let them win – his age gave him to much of an advantage. They were inseparable.

When Clary locked herself away, Alec was the only one she let inside. Clary was only eight years old, but a ten-year-old Alec held her in his arms when she cried her eyes out about her father. She poured his soul out, told him everything she knew. The days he listened to her, he vowed to himself that he would never let her go through pain alone, that he would always protect her because even though they didn’t have the same blood running through their veins, she was his sister and nothing would ever change that.

The Clary that walked out of that room three days later was not a child anymore. She wasn’t eight years anymore, she had aged in mind and soul. She still played with Izzy and Max and Alec, but there was something that only Alec seemed to see. They grew older and their games turned into training, their playful sparring turned to earnest ones. Alec preferred the bow, but Izzy took a liking to the whip and Clary? Clary preferred the baton. It seemed like it was made for her, like she was made to wield that weapon and no-one else. When Alec turned sixteen, Clary was fighting with it as if it was an extension of herself – she was one of the best Shadowhunters of her age, and so was he. His arrows rarely missed a target and distance didn’t really matter to him anymore. It was then that people started whispering about how Valentine’s daughter was one of the best, was one of the greatest warriors her age – but what if she’s like her father? What if she turned on them?

A boy around Alec’s age said something hateful to Clary those days, something about how she would never be a _real_ Shadowhunter, how the Clave wouldn’t _let_ her. Izzy almost broke the boy's hand trying to force him to apologize, and Alec _did_ break his nose the day after that.

Because that day he found Clary in the training room, punching a bag so hard her knuckles would bleed and when Alec tried to stop her, she challenged him. She threw herself at him, trying to hurt him – but Alec knew that she actually didn’t want to hurt him.

It was the first time they really fought, hitting each other and bruising the skin. It ended with Alec holding Clary down against the floor and she screamed at him, screamed that she would never be one of them, that she would never belong. She didn’t stop until Alec screamed right back at her. “You already are! You are one of us!” Alec never screamed. He rarely got angry, but that day he was so pissed at that boy who managed to hurt his sister, the girl who now started to cry underneath him.

Who sobbed into his chest for the better part of an hour after that, who apologized a thousand times for screaming at him. And he held her, as he had six years earlier, held her through the pain and felt it like it was his own. And he kept thinking about how she was wrong, how she _was_ one of them, how she was a Lightwood just as much as he was a Fairchild, but how could he prove it to her?

The idea started forming that day in his mind.

When he punched the boy who had hurt Clary, he never felt better. “Hurt my sister one more time and I will hunt you down.” Alec knew that people talked about how talented he was with the bow – he knew that this was a real threat. And when his parents and Jocelyn came to talk to him about the incident, he kept his head high. “No-one will hurt my family.” He pretended that he didn’t see the tears in Jocelyn’s eyes, he pretended he didn’t see the surprise in his mother’s eyes before she hugged him and told him that she was proud of what he did, but that he would have to carry the consequences of his actions. He nodded. Afterwards Izzy asked him whether it was worth it – and he didn’t lie when he said _yes_. His sister smiled at him.

 

He waited, watched Izzy and Clary grow taller and more dangerous. But they kept their soft faces, making people underestimate them a lot. He himself had grown a lot, towering over them. His resting bitch face did him a favour, most people decided not to mess with him or his sisters. When Clary and shortly afterwards Izzy turned sixteen, Alec decided that this had to be the time. And when he asked Clary to become his parabatai, his sister in arms, the smile that split her face made his heart ache. Her hug almost broke his rips and when they told their parents, no-one seemed too surprised. Izzy looked at him knowingly – she was far too wise for her age, knowing this was something he didn’t come up with yesterday.

When he grasped Clary’s hand and swore to be bound to her for the rest of his life, it felt like coming home. It felt like this was always meant to be. Clary burned their rune on his stomach, the place she had poked at when she was little. Returning the favour felt like there was suddenly a rope tying them together, pulling them together. Alec could feel his soul melting into Clary’s, could feel the magic that bound them together.

The next second he had a red-haired girl in his arms and happiness flowing through him, both his and hers. He buried his face in Clary’s hair, feeling her heartbeat falling in line with his. He felt more alive than ever before – and he could see the feeling reflected in Clary’s eyes.


End file.
